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ENVIRONMENT AND HYGIENE |
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Environmental Factors
Many people worry that wood floors are environmentally unsound. However, hardwood forests grow far more wood than is harvested from them every year making wood flooring one of the only completely sustainable floor covering and by choosing a wood floor instead of a synthetic floor covering, you are using a renewable source of energy. While the trees were growing, they would have contributed to cleaning up carbon dioxide emissions. Whereas synthetic flooring will have involved harmful factory emissions. Also, with synthetic floor coverings, consumers should consider what happens to the old materials after their useful life. Many end up in landfills where they can sit for literally hundreds of years. Wood floors, however, are reusable, recyclable and biodegradable.
Hygiene
Wood floors are easily cleaned with non-toxic products, and do not trap allergens like mould spores, bacteria and dust mites often embedded in other floor coverings. Dust mites contaminate their habitat with droppings and their shed skins, which are potent allergens for many people, as well as being a trigger for asthma. Dust mites don't live in every area of the home, as they need warmth and moisture to survive. As such they cannot actually live on wood floors or in the air, instead they live in mattresses, pillows, bedcovers, carpets, upholstered furniture, stuffed toys, clothes, or other fabric items in the home. Wood floors are incapable of harbouring or collecting dust and other allergy particles. This means your family will be at less risk of allergies or allergy induced medical conditions. As well as this, wood's humidity-regulating properties make a home healthier to live in. Several health organisations actually endorse wood floors for allergy-prone people. | |
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